Government Areas across Sydney and
Newcastle, and the 31 groups in the
6 Family Programs were all at capacity.
Feedback from families, the local
community, other service providers
and the funding agencies has been
extremely positive, and we look forward to
extending these services in some areas
during 2008. who made 10,364 visits to services and
completed 3,445 Service Support Plans
with service staff. Two Client Feedback
Surveys were undertaken and analysis
of the results from across all regions
indicated a high level of satisfaction
with the professionalism, knowledge,
responsiveness and support given by
the ISFs to services.
ISA Programs The ISA brochure developed by KU
was translated into 5 key community
languages - Arabic, Chinese, Korean,
Urdu and Vietnamese - and distributed
to all services and key stakeholders. An
Indigenous Resource Facilitator was
employed to support ISAs to establish
and build relationships with aboriginal
communities, and to assist ISFs to
work with staff in developing inclusive
environments for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander children.
KU Inclusion Support Agencies (ISAs) are
an initiative of the Australia-wide Inclusion
and Professional Support Program,
funded by the Australian Government
and managed by KU in 7 of the 18 regions
in NSW. The Inclusion Support Program
supports eligible child care services to
create high quality care environments that
are inclusive of all children. This includes
children with additional needs such as
children from culturally and linguistically
diverse backgrounds, children with a
disability, and Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander children.
Through the ISAs KU supports
approximately 2000 services. We employ
46 Inclusion Support Facilitators (ISFs)
10
KU’s 112 th Annual Report 2007
In addition to the ISA program, KU was
successful in becoming the Inclusion
Support Subsidy (ISS) Provider for the
seven KU ISA regions with 1,743 children
specifically supported through the ISS.
As well as receiving and assessing ISS
applications KU also began processing the
ISS payments to child care services.
ELLI
The KU ELLI (Early Language and Literacy
Initiative) began in June 2005 as a
3.5 year project, with $497,000 funding
from the Commonwealth Department of
Families, Housing, Community Services
and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) as part
of the Stronger Families and Communities,
Invest to Grow Program. It has been
implemented by KU in two KU preschools
in South Western Sydney.
At the end of 2007 the project had
provided support for the language and
literacy development of 177 children.
They had undertaken a variety projects in
areas such as colour mixing, measuring,
establishing gardens, and science
experiments. Visual displays and other
information on these projects were
provided for the families.
To date, the data from the draft evaluation
demonstrates the efficacy of the work
undertaken with the children, their
families and with the staff within the KU
ELLI project.